Night Surf and Shite Hawks

Now that the dust has settled from the Nightsurf event and I’ve managed to get a couple of goods nights recovery sleep under my belt, I must admit to still feeling quite euphoric. Which is quite unusual for me. It’s contest like no other and without being too much of a corporate arse licker, I reckon Nike did a bloody good job at maximising their investment in the contest. A lesson that a few other sponsors (and potential spono’s) could maybe learn from; they put in the extra dollar and staff to capitalize on their initial heavy investment in prizemoney and squeeze every last ounce of value from their commitment. Just do a quick search for Nike 6.0 Nightsurf to see what I mean.

Of course the Nightsurf has the advantage of the sunset, the lights , the bands, the bar and the fireworks that all produce a special atmosphere but to see thousands and thousands of knowledgeable punters on the beach cheering along the surf action was a milestone in British surfing. In my opinion.

Now, I’ve had a bit of stick about my ridicule of the horrible herring gul but I must defend myself and point out that most of you springwatch-loving-hummus-dippers dont have to actually live with them. First some good news, there’s only one left! The brood of three on the roof top opposite suffered a massive catastrophe during a thunderous rain storm a few nights after the original photos were taken (in the blog ‘skyrats’), we think they may have been washed off the roof and starved to death or got eaten by cats.

The down side is that the sole survivor has flourished and as you can see turned out to be quite a little porker, here he is baking in the recent heat wave. (You can click on the pix to make them bigger.)

But back to the point; if you have to clean acid seagull shite from your car every day and get woken up at 4am on bin day because of the squawking feeding frenzy, you may change your mind.

Instead of living in town and eating chips, why don’t they live on cliffs and eat fish (and baby Herring gulls) like the Black-backed gull, a proper seagull?